Washington Gardener Magazine is the publication for MD, DC & VA area gardeners.

Wednesday, September 28, 2005

Drought and Circumstance

I'm hoping that the second I post this message there will be a three-day rainstorm but I'm doubting we'll even get the sprinkle we were promised in tomorrow's forecast.

For the past 6 weeks, most of the DC area has had barely .01 inches of rain. We had a good drenching on Monday, but not enough. I've just checked with the USDA and we are officially in the "moderate drought" category.

For the first time in two years, I had to top off my pond because the water level was getting low. I've run through my rain barrel water supply and now have taken to bringing two large buckets in the shower with me every day to them use on my container plantings and a few in-ground annuals. The rest of the garden I'm trying to hold out on. I rarely pull out the hose and if I do, I feel tremendous guilt -- as if dollar bills are pouring out not water. Plus, it doesn't feel like I'm even making a dent in the plants' water needs.

Luckily, most of my plantings are fairly established and I've not put in too much new this year. I did lose a "Little Joe" (Joe Pye Weed) that I planted last month. I had such high hopes for it too! The leaves and acorns seem to be dropping from my oaks and other trees a bit earlier than in previous years.

What is looking just fine and dandy in the drought? My sedums, the ground ivy (!), annual vinca, lavenders, forsythia bushes, most of the roses, russian sage, and sunflowers. The real shakedown will be next year when we see what comes back and thrives.

1 comment:

Oooh, you're such a good girl for using your shower water!! It's really a challenge now to be water-wise and still keep our gardens alive. I'm moving to drought-tolerant plants more and more myself because it's a bear to keep watering like this. At my place the spirea never, ever needs watering, nor the nandina or cherry laurels and Otto leuken laurels, in the shrub category. I thank them daily.